table of contents COMMON GENIUS: Guts, Grit, and Common Sense
Subtitle: How Ordinary People Create Prosperous Societies and How Intellectuals Make Them Collapse
Publisher: Laissez Faire Books
Published: 2007
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 350
ISBN-13: 9780930073374
Subjects: HIS037000; HIS039000; HIS054000; SOC050000; SOC000000; History - World
Description: Table of Contents



Preface

Acknowledgements


Chapter  1  --  The Theory of History							 3			     			
Chapter  2  --  Past Summaries of The Past 							16	

Chapter  3  --   The Nature of Intelligence							23	

Chapter  4  --   Philosophers vs.  Scientists 							42

Chapter  5  --  The Stepping Stones of History						52

		Phoenicia -- The First Merchant State  					 53	    
		Greece -- The Roots of Democracy						 56	
		Iceland --  Overcoming  Geography and Climate				 62	
		The Basques -- The Importance of Undesirable Land				 65	
		Florence and the Italian City States -- Drawing on the Past			 69		 		Holland -- Bourgeois Burghers at Work			                      79
		Scotland -- The Protestant Reformation Realized				 84	
		England	-- A Thousand Years of Persistence by the Common People		 90
		America -- Putting it all Together--The Ultimate Stepping Stone		                        96     				
Chapter  6  --  Why The West Won							105		

Chapter  7  --  Defining Historical Progress							129	

Chapter  8  --  How Developing Nations Can Develop			 			138	 

Chapter  9  --  Smugglers, Mercantilism, Fishing and Illegal Immigration			                     156		

Chapter 10  --  How Religions Affect Growth and Freedom     					165

Chapter 11  --  European Diplomacy -- Two Hundred Years of Failure				182

Chapter 12  --  The Difference Between Principles and Ideas					198	

Chapter 13  --  Drifting Backward--Totalitarianism and Genocide in the 20th Century		                     210	

Chapter 14  --  Problems of Mature Societies -- The Intelligentsia Arrives			                     226					
Chapter 15   --  The Decline of Societies -- Following the Wrong Vision			                     252						
Chapter 16   --  What’s So Great About The Common Man 				                     274			
Notes										282
Notes: Summary--
	 Common Genius represents a new theory of economic world history that suggests that all progress toward greater freedom and prosperity was accomplished, not by Great Men, not by climate or natural resources, not by luck or chance, and not by superior genetics, but by the combined efforts of many common men and women. Now, you might argue, there have been a lot of common people in the world, so there should have been a lot of progress and it should have occurred everywhere  However, consistent progress in freedom and prosperity appeared most remarkably only in one small corner of the world. The new theory here outlined is that the innate common genius of most humans was thwarted in most of the world by oppressive leaders, demagogues, clergy, and philosophers who imposed stultifying forms of physical and mental oppression that prevented the common people from acting.  Only in a few isolated enclaves were circumstances such that the common people escaped such oppression. And the one common denominator in each such successful enclave was that the citizens had more freedom to work and build their fortunes than did the citizens anywhere else. 
	This book elaborates on how, when and where the people of these outposts carved out all the mechanics for progressive governments--The key was that their society empowered the people and freed them to act. A related finding is that such empowering societies were all distinguished by an absence of intellectuals or aristocracies--groups that we suggest have always retarded progress. In fact, the Radzewicz Theory here outlined shows that intellectuals were never present when vital new societies were built--Instead such elites arose only in comfortable societies already built, and then, their influence gradually led to the demise of the society. That reversal of a well-functioning society’s progress has usually been  due to the substitution of leadership from those who knew how to build to those who did not. Another conclusion is that the Great Philosophers never contributed to progress other than by reporting what had already been accomplished by ordinary people. Throughout the book comparison is made of the dates when common people initiated certain favorable governing mechanisms to the invariably subsequent date when intellectuals wrote about such practices. It becomes evident the philosophers were always playing catch-up and rarely gave credit to the originators--indeed, they generally have passed off their theories as original work! Worse, they often garbled the actual innovation or altered it to meet their own fantasies or ideologies--distortions that have led otherwise successful people down many disastrous paths. 
	Most of the breakthroughs in history came from people trying to solve problems--in hundreds of different ways over thousands of years. Anyone observant enough noticed the attempts that succeeded and those that did not. The common genius was frequently simple trial and error, learning from mistakes, and copying successful approaches. This case by case approach was the product of deliberate and sensible ordinary people. Most of the brilliant thinkers outside of the physical sciences did not use that approach--they theorized and conceptualized what solutions and outcomes they thought would be best and pursued those ideologies to the end, never willing or able to admit error. This difference in approach explains why ordinary workers produced results and intellectuals produced disasters
	The search for the real causative factor in mankind’s progression over the past 3,000 years is presented in simple form readily accessible to all. This answer to how we progressed from privation to affluence has great significance in addressing today‘s problems--It is only by knowing the techniques and governing institutions that created modern freedom and affluence that we can maintain that forward progress and spread it to the most depressed areas of the world  that still suffer hunger and privation. Identifying such clear lessons from the past and applying them to the present is the noblest purpose in the study of history. If economics and political science are to serve any useful purpose it will be by objectively examining what has worked and what hasn’t . It will do great harm if we continue any belief that geography, climate, pollution, luck, ethnicity, or race played any significant role in producing the Industrial Revolution or the Internet Age. Those are dead-end theories that are not only unfounded, but provide no guidance for the future. On the other hand, Common Genius lays out the fundamental source of progress--the vital lesson from the laboratory of history-- and thereby presents a roadmap for the future.




2.)Table of Contents


Chapter  1  --  The Theory of History					     			

Chapter  2  --  Attempts to Summarize History							

Chapter  3  --   The Nature of Intelligence								

Chapter  4  --   Philosophers vs.  Scientists 						

Chapter  5  --  The Stepping Stones of History--Progress at a Snail’s Pace			

		Phoenicia -- The First Merchant State  						    
		Greece -- The Roots of Democracy							
		Iceland --  Overcoming Geography and Climate					
		The Basques -- The Importance of Undesirable Land					
		Florence and the Italian City States -- Drawing on the Past					 	Holland -- Bourgeois Burghers at Work						
		Scotland -- The Protestant Reformation Realized					
		England	-- A Thousand Years of Persistence by the Common People
		America -- Putting it all Together--The Ultimate Stepping Stone		      				
Chapter  6  --  Why The West Won									

Chapter  7  --  Defining Historical Progress								

Chapter  8  --  Solutions for Less Developed Nations			 				 

Chapter  9  --  How Smugglers and Illegals Beat Mercantilism						

Chapter 10  --  Did Different Religions Affect Growth ?     	

Chapter 11  --  European Diplomacy -- Two Hundred Years of Failure					

Chapter 12  --  Drifting Backward--Totalitarianism and Genocide in the 20th Century			

Chapter 13  --  Problems of Mature Societies -- The Intelligentsia Arrives								
Chapter 14   --  The Decline of Societies -- Following the Wrong Vision									
Chapter 15   --  Concluding Thoughts 					 			


After word -- An Action Plan  --  Guidelines from the Past on Current Issues


			*		*		*